1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to the field of electronic devices, including, but not limited to, electronic sensors that are used to identify products and their exposure to environmental conditions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many products are sensitive to environmental conditions. For example, a foodstuff (e.g., wheat) may become spoiled, or even toxic, if exposed to water, which can cause dangerous mold to form on the wheat. Similarly, any edible product may become toxic if contaminated with a poison. Other materials, including chemicals, may lose their useful properties, or even become hazardous, if exposed to incompatible chemicals, heat, etc.
Current processes for determining whether a product has been exposed to a harmful environmental condition are slow and expensive. For example, consider again the load of wheat that has been exposed to water. If the water has evaporated, it may not be readily apparent that the wheat got wet or that mold has grown on it. If there is a suspicion that the wheat got wet, then a sample of the wheat may be taken, swabbed onto a nutrient medium, and then cultured for several days before definitive tests can be taken to show that mold has formed. Such a process is labor intensive, slow (takes several days for the culture to confirm that the wheat got wet), and unreliable, since the process is predicated on a “suspicion that the wheat got wet.” Such a suspicion may or may not ever have been raised.
Similarly, if an edible product has been exposed to poison, the residue of poison left on the edible product may be miniscule, making detection difficult, even with a sophisticated analyzer.
Likewise, if a chemical is transformed when exposed to an incompatible material, thus causing the chemical to lose its useful properties, the transformed nature of the chemical may not be noticed until a catastrophe occurs (e.g., the altered chemical causes an explosive reaction when later processed).